Category Archives: Business

I bought a bunch of Echos for my house on Prime Day. My daughter asked me if I wasn’t concerned about the Deep State, as recently the government subpoenaed the Alexa records of an Arkansas man from Amazon.

I considered that before buying Alexa, but I figured what the Hell. They already have all of my texts and phone calls. All of my emails and banking transactions, All my movements from cell phones and facial recognition from city street and toll cameras. All of my credit card charges. All of my facebook posts. All of my medical records from Obamacare. Their satellite cameras can look in my bedroom window. My cars and trucks have black boxes that report my car’s diagnostics, and a microphone they have control of. They have every Google search I’ve ever made and every site I’ve ever visited. They can take over every camera, phone computer and TV; smart refrigerator and washer; door bell or flood light camera; or anything else with a camera or microphone. My electric smart meter tells them how much electricity I’m using in any given moment. How much more help can Alexia give them on what channel I watch or what music I’m listening to?

Dave Schultz

December 29, 2012

As I write this, we’re about to fall off the “Fiscal Cliff”. In a nutshell, the Fiscal Cliff of December 31st is when the “Bush Tax Cuts” end, many subsidies end, the country hits the “Debt Ceiling” and runs out of money, and across the board cuts (known as a Sequester) to all Federal agencies – especially the military – go into effect.

Let’s take them one by one.

Tax Rates.

Income Tax Rates for everyone will go up. Those who pay no taxes will pay about $300, while those earning $1Million a year will pay an additional $170,000. I expect mine to go up about $30,000 a year. While many have fallen for the Class Warfare Obama has pushed on us, and won’t shed a tear for those earning a higher income, there is a trickle-down effect that will affect everyone. Many of these so called rich are small business people, and they’ll cut back even more in than they’ve already been preparing for with Obamacare. I personally have put off all plans to open any new business until there is sanity restored to government (Going Galt), and I refuse to hire anyone full time. I won’t be buying a new car or truck in the near future – and I’m driving an 8-year-old truck for the first time in many years. So if you have anything to do with building cars, selling cars, making parts, or even wanting to collect sales tax on a car purchase — Sorry. You will also find times tougher if you work in a restaurant, sell electronics, work in the travel industry, or do anything else financed with discretionary income. There will be less to spend, so more people will be laid off, causing even less to be spent, causing even more to be laid off.

Payroll Taxes paid by employer and employee. These rates go up for both starting January 1. Additionally there is a new Obamacare tax. Employers have to cut back somewhere – and that will be people.

Capital Gains Tax. This is a tax on something that you paid with your already taxed dollars – and then sold for more than you bought it for. It also includes the weak ass interest you might receive on your savings – or the sale of your house (which also gets a new 3% Obamacare tax). It currently is 15% — and will go to 40%.

Death Tax. Goes to 55% from 35%, and the exemption drops from $5Million that you can shield to $1Million (a common house in many cities) that you can shield. Say you spent your early years working and studying harder than all of your friends so that you could give your future family a better life than you had. Your busting ass and taking big risks pay off and you hit that level of financial success you planned for. Then you die. Instead of the money, investments, and property (that the government left you after seizing its share in Income tax) going to your heirs – the government first skims 55% off the top as a tribute. Don Fanucci calls this Wetting the Beak.

AMT – Alternative Minimum Tax. Obama will tell you that I’m rich because I EARN over $250,000 a year, and that I have tax loop holes available to me. I have no loop holes and pay a huge amount in taxes. I am means tested away from everything the average citizen gets. I also have the burden of AMT – and the $7500 my CPA charges to prepare my associated tax returns from fully documented computer records of my accounting system (which also cost me a pricey sum during the year). You see my taxes have to be prepared two different ways – and I have to pay the higher of the two. Some freaking loop hole! Coming up are 30 Million more of you get to have the same pleasure of this AMT.

Subsidies. Government Subsidies go to corn farmers for ethanol in gas, dairy farmers, solar farms, wind farms, colleges, tv stations, car manufacturers, and all kinds of other stupid stuff. It is a Socialist tool to spread the wealth from the 50% who pay taxes, to the Moochers who pay no taxes and have their hands out for a socialist government spreading the wealth. A true Capitalist economy wouldn’t have it – but just the same expect your milk to go to $8 a gallon, gas to jump, and your electric bill to spike from the lack of these subsidies getting renewed.

Debt Ceiling. Whenever the country spends more than it takes in – it goes into debt. Congress has to approve the debt. Five years ago this debt was $5Trillion dollars – which is a Hell of a lot of money that will take forever to pay off, mainly because of the size of the interest payments to our creditor – China! When with Obama giving away free stuff like cell phones, Internet, Food Stamps, unemployment forever, and greasing political cronies like Solindra, GM, Fiat,… our debt ceiling was authorized to be $16.4 Trillion. It might sound like just a number to you – but you can never repay that kind of money. We will hit that debt ceiling this Monday – and then we can borrow no more. Secretary of the Treasury (and tax cheat as most Obama appointees are) Timmy Geithner will play some illegal magic with the number while Congress turns its head. Naturally they won’t cut off the handouts to moochers who put these Socialists in office – but I guarantee my VA disability will not be paid (barely worth mentioning anyway – but for others more seriously injured and having no other income are screwed), our Military personnel, parks, airports and anything else having to do with business or the military will see the lion share of the cuts.

Sequester. Because not a single Fiscal Budget has been approved by Congress since Obama took office – the last agreement was for a “Sequester” to go into effect January 1st – if there still was not a budget approved. The Sequester has automatic cuts to all Federal Agencies – but really loads it up on the Military, who Liberals have always had distain for. Well the Democrats kept insisting on taxing and spending more, and Republicans kept insisting on cutting back on government – so nothing was agreed to and we get the Sequester.

OK – so those are the facts on what the Fiscal Cliff is. I have explained it because I’ve yet to find a family member or friend who actually knew any more than what Obama’s media has wanted them to know – which is that “the evil Republicans are making your taxes go up”.

Now I’m going to give my opinion/editorial on what should be done if we want to save this country from becoming the Fiscal Failure like the PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain). If you don’t know what’s happening there – you need to do a Google search and learn how their borrowing money to give to Moochers bankrupted them to the point where no one works, and there are no government services.

The reason that I feel qualified to discuss this is because I’ve been a political animal for over 30 years – and the news is on in my home 12-15 hours a day. I get up in the morning at 5AM and have the financial news on until 3PM while I make my stock trades (giving me an insight on Finance) and the National News on from 3PM to 7PM. I’m usually working on the computer – but I keep an ear open on important topics. I also have an insatiable appetite for knowledge. If I have any question in my mind about anything no matter how trivial – I look it up. I’m usually at the keyboard, but even sitting and watching a movie or a game will have me with my iPad to look up trivia like when the actress died, of what disease, or what years the coach played the game.

A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years.

During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

You are either a Producer (contributing more than you receive), or a Moocher (receiving more than you contribute). Don’t like being called a Moocher – too bad cupcake. You are part of the problem with the United States going bankrupt. We are a society that continues to say the 5% paying 90% of the taxes aren’t doing their fair share.

In the past, the Christian Work ethic of Americans didn’t require big government. There were no handouts and people had to work to care for their family. If there was no work – you moved to where there was work. People moved from the Dust Bowl to California. People moved from the cotton fields of Mississippi to industry in places like Detroit. I moved from Buffalo, New York to Texas when factories closed in the 70s. You use to take responsibility and you showed some self-pride. Today you will make more money not working (in addition to under the table) than to work – and those who still aren’t working after 2 years (Obama wants to raise to three years!) of Unemployment handouts now go on Social Security disability – because they’re too distressed from not working to work, thus disabled.

In the past, family took care of family. All of my Great-Grandmothers were cared for by their children or grandchildren. Now the government pays for the elderly and disabled in families and families grow apart.

In the past, we had personal pride. I grew up in a 1-bedroom apartment with four brothers and three sisters (later upgrading to a two bedroom duplex) – and often had a grandfather or even another family living with us. I started selling doughnuts door to door at age 7, and had a paper route at age 10. The four eldest siblings always had a job from the time they turned 12 – always. My father worked minimum wage jobs (and it sure the Hell wasn’t what it is now days) pumping gas, delivering flowers, working at a hardware store, of being a security guard. Out of Pride, my family never applied for or received a penny of public assistance. Now the Moochers get a credit card and their unearned handouts are called Benefits – and paid into benefits like Social Security and Medicare (which I’ll never see a nickel of after paying the maximum all of my life) are considered some great government benefit. Well it is only a government benefit to the people who didn’t properly contribute to the system – or are fraudulently receiving benefits.

The problem is that the Socialists/Progressives/Liberals/Communists have won. They may have different motives of why they ran for office – from the Big C Communist carrying out Stalin’s dream and infiltration of the 1930s, to the Little C communist who is more of a Che/Castro Communist wanting to kill America by overburdening it with totally dependent people (Search Saul Alinsky and Cloward & Piven Strategy) – or just greedy people willing to sell out America for a high paying (and benefits) career of never having to actually have a job — by giving free stuff to moochers in exchange for their vote. Whether they do it for fame, principle, or free lunch – they have quickly brought us to the point of no return. LBJ’s Great Society was sold as a making all people equal – but 50 years later it is on its 4th generation of totally dependent moochers who will never be productive – cranking out kids who will also never be productive. It most hurt the people it was designed to help, because it was always a flawed plan. It has also created more hate between the races than I’ve experienced in my 58 years. Obama has wedged a great divide between the Producers and Moochers to record levels. It is how he got re-elected after being History’s Worst President. The Great Society has been a Great Failure. The reason we’re past the point of no return and the Liberals have won is because they are now the majority and will always vote for free stuff over real reform. Their greed and laziness has also caused them to be an ignorant group of people – who won’t make the simple effort to expand their knowledge, or even follow current events. We see these idiots on Jay Leno’s Jay Walking, or Howard Stern’s Man on the Street. These are sheeple that will accept anything politicians and the Liberal Media will tell them. Over the last 20 years Liberals have been going after our children with a vengeance. Most teachers are union activists, very Liberal, Pro Gay, and downright ignorant. Go have a conversation with your kid’s teachers and test what I’m telling you. Are they like your teachers in the 50s or 60s? Those kids making it to college (and most now go for stupid curriculums like French Literature or Sports Administration) have it even worse with the Professional Little C communists controlling all teaching positions. They are molding our kids in their vision.

If you’ve watched the News or listened to Obama and Reid in the last few days – you are under the impression that Boehner and the Republicans are going to make everybody’s taxes go up because they’re not going to vote for a Bill that raises taxes on anyone. While it is true that Conservatives feel that the problem isn’t enough taxes but too much spending – the lie is that the Democrats in the same Bill have agreed to cut nothing, they want to rescind the Sequester, they want to add another year of unemployment payments, and they want to increase the debt ceiling to even higher levels. Nowhere in the news does this get reported.

When I ran a larger business, I would tell my managers to never come to me with a problem without also having a suggested solution. So here’s my solution. Everyone gives up something to make things right. It is politically incorrect & racist – because you can’t take anything away from Moochers. It is said that Romney lost the election for telling the truth about the 47% that will vote for free stuff. Since then, Politicians will never again (at least on purpose) tell the truth, as it will be terminal to their career. I don’t hold a political office, nor will I ever run for one – so I’ll accept the racist label I’ll and just tell it like it is.

Taxes. In addition to an unfair system where 5% pays 90%, and 50% pay nothing – I’d go with a Federal Sales Tax REPLACING the Personal and Business Income Tax. Fire 99% of the IRS Thugs, as they won’t be needed. We do need prison guards though. Have accountants focus on business financials and other accounting rather than making a mountain out of a molehill on our taxes. In addition to the huge savings of 99% of the IRS expenses with a simple tax – everyone has skin in the game. Pimps, crack whores, Illegals, Visitors – any person or business buying something will be contributing in the revenue. While the rich pay more because they buy more (bigger homes, bigger cars, bigger boats, bigger cocktail bills!), everyone has a little skin in the game – reducing their Moocher footprint. You want to pay less tax – buy less. This sales tax is collected by the state – and remitted to the Feds. Since the States do what they’re supposed to do (take care of their people) and the Feds do what they’re supposed to do (take care of the states) – far less money needs to go to the Fed, and the non-military portion can be reduced to 5% of what it currently is as a nanny.

Eliminate Capital Gains tax and Estate tax. This is money left after being taxed at least once already – and it is not right to tax it again and again. The wealthy will take this money and set up yet more charitable foundations and give yet more to charity. This will eliminate both the need for a corrupt Government to be the nanny of the truly needy – and be far less corrupt with election contributions and cronyism. You’ll never convince Liberals of this charity aspect – because it is their greedy nature to hate Producers and it has never crossed their mind to be charitable. Liberals believe it is up to the government – not the citizens — to take care of their neighbor.

OK – after making the Revenue so simple that you can’t cheat and you need a million less government thugs to collect and audit – you need to properly handle expenses.

This Republic was originally created for the individual state to handle the vast majority of governing its people – and the Federal government was to handle those United States defense and interstate commerce. Don’t like the way your state is governing – move to state you liked! However, Progressives (name communists like to be referred to) in the 1920s-1930s saw the spread of the dream for One World Marxism. On the way – the Federal government grew like a cancer to rob our freedoms so they could expand in just the way our Founding Fathers warn us of. 80% of what the Federal Government has their finger in now would appall those Founding Fathers.

It was never the plan of the founding fathers to have tax dollars (we actually didn’t even have a Federal Income tax until 1900) going to subsidize colleges, solar energy, wind farms, milk, corn, Internet, cell phones, cash for clunkers, oil, matching election contributions. Daycare, welfare, unemployment, Obamacare, FEMA, flood insurance, bullets for the IRS, liar loan mortgages, — you get the idea!

Yesterday, Obama gave all Federal politicians and employees a raise by Executive Order. In the beginning, these politicians had their expenses paid by the state that had sent them. They didn’t receive 6-digit salaries, big expense accounts, private limos; or special retirement packages and premium free health care for life after just one term. They didn’t go on junkets to Tahiti either. Who gave them these benefits – you, me? No, these corrupt parasites give these gifts to themselves – and that doesn’t come close to the graft and corruption they receive in shady motel rooms or bogus salaries to their family members. Eliminate all of that, and rescind all these gifts they illegally gave themselves. Have the state pay for their representatives, staff, and expenses. Then the state will get the representation they deserve and the politician has to answer to someone about the money his office spends. Have term Limitations of one 6 year term to each branch – Executive, Senate, and Congress. This stops the campaigning while on our dime – and holds their feet to the fire to vote their conscience – as that was supposed to be the reason we put them there.

Get the US out of the UN, and the UN out of the US. There is no good to that organization – and no reason for us to finance their hatred of us. The UN is the most corrupt organization in the Universe. We waste hundreds of billions of dollars a year on this corrupt farce.

States need to handle the education and public assistance needs of their citizens through their portion of sales tax. (Again, no income tax, cigarette tax, FET, gasoline, or other hidden taxes – just one sales tax with the major portion going to the states and a small portion to the Federal Government – plus property taxes for those owning land.) The more localized you make it – the better the money is spent. If your state politicians want to play the Moocher game for votes that the Federal government is playing – a Producer will find a state better suited for his politics or personal responsibility. If smaller adjoining states need to merge to make this go – then it is their prerogative to negotiate the terms and put it to a vote. I have a lot of thoughts on how states should take care of the needy – without creating more of them, but that’s for another day.

I appreciate the military and want a strong defense. I enlisted when I was 16 and started serving shorting after turning 17. I am a Vietnam Era Service Connected Disabled Veteran. For 40 years, my injuries (although not combat related) cause me great pain every waking moment of the day – and greatly limits my mobility. I love the country I enlisted to serve. That said – let’s get out of the Middle East. When two groups of people who hate you start killing each other – you step away – and let them get to it. We have always chosen the wrong side with them – because there is no right side. Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan – they are all inhabited by violent animals driven by a violent culture of hate. Just stand back let them thin their own herd. If they have training camps or hideouts for attacking us – then send in an AC130, a drone, or a cruise and take them out. Tens of Billions are wasted each year with crony contracts to “Military Consultants”. End it. You’re either Military, Civil Servant (and that should be limited), or a contractor. Screw this unaccountable contract consultant stuff. The military also needs to show more accountability to the states on money they spend. More of the military should be localized to the state (as we did in the days of the Civil War) – but overseen by the Department of the Defense. States have the right to have any size State militia they are willing to fund. The Militia and the Right to Bear Arms were put into the Constitution because the Founding Father’s wanted these rights to belong with the states – and that Federal Governments are easily corrupted with shifting power from the states to themselves.

States handle their own highway systems with their own taxing based on the state’s needs. Interstate systems get turned over to the states. They maintain their sections of it. If they can’t – then cars and trucks will avoid that state. Money will no longer be doled out based on political affiliation. Illinois sure has had a lot of roadwork in the last five years – I’m just sayin! If the states wish to contract the repair and maintenance of these sections of Interstates to private business as toll roads, that’s their option. Pay for use is fair.

The Federal government needs to turn over Federal Park Lands to the state with the land. The state owns the property, its resources – and the expense of maintaining it.

While most of the governing (schools, health, welfare, roads, …) comes from the state – there are some (about 5% of what they’ve taken from the states over the years) use for a fair Federal government. FBI does need to handle Interstate crime. NSA or the CIA need to handle International intelligence as it applies to the protection against a foreign power. An Interstate commerce system is needed to ensure smooth travel between states. An EPA far different than the one we have ensure there is a balance between industry and the environment. A FTC for the protection of interstate crime against a consumer. A FCC to keep an organized and safe radio/TV/internet system. A small Federal prison system. The FAA for air traffic. Immigration – and while on that subject, Profile Immigration and stop the entry into the country by violent cultures for education, or any other reason. Ask France, England, Spain, and Demark how allowing Muslim men in the 16-50 age range is working out for them.

We don’t FEMA – that was never the Federal government’s job. States handle their own citizens’ rescue from storms. They will spend the money better and know the needs better. FEMA has failed everywhere. We don’t need them here in Texas! If you don’t have the proper insurance, then find a state with no bad weather or has that as a big priority. Home ownership is not a right – it is a privilege you earn from your hard work. I’ve personally been through 7 hurricanes and have learned that if you can’t afford to pay the taxes and insurances on your home – then you can’t afford to own a home. The government was never intended to pay your hotel bill for 2 years, like it did for Kartrina evacuees – or waste billions on trailers never used. It has always been up to family, friends, neighbors, and charity to help the truly needy – not for the government to create a class of totally dependence people.

No Department of Education. They have been a miserable failure. States will do a better job.

No Wage and Labor board. States deal with discrimination and set their own minimum wage. These are political hacks currently at the Federal Level.

No foreign aid. We need to take care of own people before worrying about others on a Federal level. This is best done as charity. Let’s stop funding those who hate us to buy bombs to kill us. Every time there has been a catastrophe, American (and apparently only Americans) citizens have responded with charity and volunteers.

There are currently only five countries worthy of a mutual defense agreement with us. Canada, England, Australia, Poland, and Israel. The rest can go pound salt. We should only sell weapons to those countries. Other country’s would have to prove a very high standard of worthiness with a 2/3 super majority vote of Congress.

Speaking of Congress, ours in Texas meets every two years for only a few months. They don’t have time to make work by creating stupid laws. A point that the Federal Government needs to take note of. I should also point out that Texas has low unemployment and no state income tax.

No Federal Grants to anyone for anything. Colleges, business, Pells, … None. That is not the business of the Federal Government – until they decided to make it their business. The tax money isn’t theirs to give out or spread around. It is the money of the people. It needs to be limited in size seized from them, and spent wisely when seized from them. The Great American industries were built without the government – and did better until they got involved. The Railroads, steel mills, automobile assembly plants, electricity, and the personal computer were created without the Federal Government getting involved. They’ve been dying because of government involvement.

The Federal Government needs to be relieved of 95% of the freedoms they have taken from the States and Citizens, and its budget should be less than 5% of what it currently is. The people the government has encouraged to be so dependent on the government need to quickly be weaned off the government’s tit. States need to set a two year goal for these people to take personal responsibility – and those who can’t ever do it need to have their children placed in Orphanages that will properly educate the kids to be productive adults – but again, I’ll explain my opinion on how the States can make American citizens productive and responsible people, and the United States again a great nation.

Every state needs to be responsible for their own economy. They break it – they fix it.

Finally, the Federal government was created as a contractor of the States. They were contracted for the states protection. States have since had all of their rights taken from them by an out of control Federal Government. Any state that shares one border with another Country or Ocean, should have the Right to peacefully secede and become its own Republic or Country at any time they do not like their governance of the Federal Government. California, New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts can become the “People’s Republics” they apparently want to be, New Mexico can become the Indian Nation they want to be, Hawaii and Puerto Rico can become Banana Republics if that’s’ their desire – and Texans can have the Texas they want – not what Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco wants.

If any of this makes sense to you – Read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. You’ll love it.

Bad News

In March, I lost all electricity to my motorhome on Day 1 of a race in Bradenton, Fl.

A week later when we got home I took the motorhome to Southern Plains in Houston, who is the authorized dealer for my Onan generator. It took them about a week to even look at the motorhome — and then they called to say that it wasn’t the generator, but the inverter — and that it would cost $2700 plus a couple hundred shipping JUST FOR THE PART to get one in time to get fixed for my next race. They couldn’t estimate the labor.

That didn’t sound right to me, so I call the inverter company and they say that it would cost about $650 to fix it at their Houston Local dealer. So I drive 2 hours to get it from Southern Plains, and drop off to be repaired, and then picked it up two hours later to drive the two hours to bring it back to Southern Plains. $650 lighter in the wallet for a board swap, I’m given a 90 day warranty.

Bad News

Two days I go to pick up the motorhome from Southern Plains — and they give me a $1200+ bill — after my alleged discount for the Remove and replace of the Inverter! I mention that it can’t take more than two hours to R&R something like that — and I was assured it is a far bigger job than that.

Bad News

On the way to the last race the inverter craps out again, as has my 90-day warranty.

Good News

I look on-line and find a new one from an authorized dealer with 3-year warranty for $1750 delivered (not $2700 + 250 delivery!), and I buy it.

Today, it took Dallas and I 90 minutes to swap out the old for the new — and we’ve never done this before. I hate being ripped off — you hear me Southern Plains?

Moral: If you don’t want to be ripped off, fix your motorhome yourself, and never take it to Southern Plains!

Become a Domain and Hosting Reseller

The window of opportunity to build a successful Domain and Hosting business is wide open. More and businesses, organizations, and people are registering they domain names and creating their own web site daily. Add to that more and more domain names are coming up for renewal, and people are sick of the poor service and high cost from the original “Old School” registrars. They’re charging as much as 4 times the price they could be paying — betting on people their customers will just do it. Many do, but more and more are transferring to a registrar offering a better price. Now is the time for entrepreneurs to jump in and take advantage of these prospective customers.

Old Hippie Domains is authorized to sign up resellers of Go Daddy products in the reseller’s own name. Go Daddy’s reseller group provides the back office (servers, billing, support, credit card processing, renewals, reports, …) to the reseller, in the name of the reseller. The reseller’s customers only know of the reseller — and not Go Daddy actually handling the entire back office. The majority of resellers you see advertising Domain Registration, transfers, and web hosting are doing so under this arrangement. The only thing the reseller really needs to do is to create a web site with good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and to do as little or as much marketing as they wish.

The most profitable of the Old Hippie Domains resellers is Southern Star Hosting. It became a reseller about 5 years ago, and its current marketing strategy is limited to banners on web sites — although it will be greatly expanding on that in the coming weeks. You can visit them (and I suggest you do if you are interested in becoming a reseller) at www.SouthernStarHosting.com a to get an idea of what a professional reseller site through Old Hippie Domains looks like, the product pricing that they use, and the products they offer.

While is it not that difficult to become an Old Hippie Domains reseller, and set up your web site on your own – many potential resellers have indicated that they would prefer a turn key business set up for them including all of the web work. Then all that they need concern themselves with is to market the products and sit back to collect the commissions. Reseller’s out of pocket expenses are limited to an annual licensing fee (which is less than $100 for a Standard resellers, and less than $200 for Pro resellers), cost of their web site (free if you do it yourself), and what you want to spend on Marketing.

The major difference between Pro and Standard is the buy rates of the products.

What you spend in marketing is up to you. Some are good with the traffic the search engines bring them. Others might use Google Adsense or some other linking banner advertisement, while others have big budgets for TV and radio advertising. Many start small and reinvest profits to grow — yet some others come into it with an initially big advertising budget. As a reseller, one of the benefits is a 185 page book written by a very successful reseller. In it he outlines various strategies and it is in the reseller’s best interest to read the book. Likewise the reseller sets his own pricing of products by individual product. He can go with the strategy of the bare minimum and go for volume of renewing customers, go with the suggested (which is what Southern Star Hosting does) pricing, or set the pricing to the maximum and have fewer customers but higher margin. Again, the reseller’s book discusses these various strategies and it is left to the reseller.

How successful a person is in the Reseller’s business is directly related to their effort. The most profitable, put in the most effort.

For those entrepreneurs interested in becoming a Domain/Hosting reseller but want someone who understands the business to give them a head start with a good web site, the below have been set up and are for sale. As they are sold, other catchy reseller domain names are registered and web sites developed to replace the sold business.

There are two parts to a reseller’s web site. The first is the front site that both catches the interest of the prospective customer — yet has better SEO to bring more visitors to your site. The second part is the back end site — which gives the product detail and signs your customers up for the products you sell. One big mistake that most of the less experienced resellers make is to only have the back end site (because it is easiest to setup and hosted on Go Daddy servers) but not the front end site. This is one of the many secrets the book gives those who take the time (too few) to read it. We’ve created our front end sites from highly modified Word Press templates, which we put together for our own use. There are many benefits from the this, but the two most important is SEO, and ease of use. The first is because we’ve installed an addon that routinely creates the exact type of site map that the major search engines look for — then notifies them to come crawl the site. In time this (and other tricks learned from the book) causes your site to receive higher and higher display ratings for the same key words. The second is that Word Press is incredibly stabile and easy to use. When there are updates — one-click gets them installed for you. If you can post to Facebook — then you can maintain a Word Press web site.

Currently the above resellers sites are completely operational and garnering points with the search engines. However, the products they sell are using Southern Star Hosting’s back end site, and Southern Star Hosting is receiving the sales/Commissions. When someone buys the reseller site and executes a reseller agreement, they will have us assemble their back end site and change the links to theirs. We will also relinquish the ownership of the domain name to them via a transfer.

We only want $2000 for the domain name we registered and the web site we created for the above reseller businesses. You might be asking yourself why we’re doing this so cheap? The answer is that Old Hippie Domains has a vested interest in your success. Frankly (and few others who sign up resellers will admit to this — but we all do) Old Hippie Domains makes a very small commission on every product you as a reseller sell. This doesn’t affect your commissions at all as it is paid to us directly, and the amount is so small that we need a lot of resellers with a lot of sales to be substantial enough to brag about. However, it is enough for us to want to see our sellers to become successful, and these prepackaged reseller businesses are part of our strategy to make our resellers more successful than other resellers.

You have two other options with Old Hippie’s Domains to become a reseller.

Save the $2000 and become a reseller for as little as $79. Read the book and do the work putting together a professional web site with good SEO yourself. That’s what Southern Star Hosting did, and it worked for them.

Register a domain name you prefer from the ones we offered above — and we create your site with the same function as the above with your registered domain name and the “Look and Feel” you wish.

If you are ready to start your own domain/hosting reseller business — email me your questions and concerns.

Advertising Special. For a limited time, buyers of the above reseller businesses will receive one year’s worth of rotating advertising banners linking to their site on their choice of a web site selected from the 23 DDS Enterprises, Inc. offers banners on.

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The World’s Best Speech

Money Is Evil?

The follow in a speech given by a fictional character by the name of Francisco D’Ancondia in a novel written in 1957 by Ayn Rand — titled “Atlas Shrugged”

As I write this, I’m about 1/3 of the way through the book — which is the best book I’ve ever read. Some who read the book will understand the message the author intended to give — but most today, as in 1957, will have the message race over their head — as they are living in that warning given over 50 years ago. To them, it will just be a great novel of fictitious people in a fictitious land.

I encourage those worried with what “Hope and Change” has put the United States to please read this book. It is a big and heavy book — better read in the electronic version. I believe that many, like me, will find it near impossible to put it down.

The below except is a speech Franciso gave at a wedding of an anti-business “Progressive”, that was attended but Socialists and Government Cronies. It was his response to someone telling him that his money was evil.

“So you think that money is the root of all evil?” said Francisco d’Anconia. “Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

“When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears not all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor–your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, Is this what you consider evil?

“Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions–and you’ll learn that man’s mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.

“But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made–before it can be looted or mooched–made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can’t consume more than he has produced.’

“To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss–the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery–that you must offer them values, not wounds–that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men’s stupidity,

but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade–with reason, not force, as their final arbiter–it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability–and the degree of a man’s productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?

“But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality–the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.

“Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he’s evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he’s evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

“Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth–the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve the mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

“Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men’s vices or men’s stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment’s or a penny’s worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you’ll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money?

“Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money

will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money?

“Or did you say it’s the love of money that’s the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It’s the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money–and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.

“Let me give you a tip on a clue to men’s characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.

“Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another–their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.

“But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich–will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt–and of his life, as he deserves.

“Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard–the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money–the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law–men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims–then money becomes its creators’ avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they’ve passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

“Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion–when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing–when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors–when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you–when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice–you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that is does not compete with guns

and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

“Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men’s protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, ‘Account overdrawn.’

“When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, ‘Who is destroying the world? You are.

“You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it’s crumbling around you, while you’re damning its life-blood–money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men’s history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves–slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody’s mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer, Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers–as industrialists.

“To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money–and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man’s mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being–the self-made man–the American industrialist.

“If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose–because it contains all the others–the fact that they were the people who created the phrase ‘to make money.’ No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity–to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words ‘to make money’ hold the essence of human morality.

“Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters’ continents. Now the looters’ credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide– as, I think, he will.

“Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns–or dollars. Take your choice–there is no other–and your time is running out.”

I believe I understand Rand’s message because of personally experiencing the comments and attitudes and people around me for so many years. I believe the Novel was written about 40 years into the 100-year plan, and we’re better than 90 years into that plan. People need to wake up — and reading Atlas Shrugged will make many of those who read it.

My middle daughter bought me Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand last week, to read as I recover at home from an illness. Last night I read the Introduction (which was based on excerpts from the author’s journal planning the story and characters) and the first three chapters (93 pages) tonight. Very hard to put down.

Originally the book was going to be called “Strike”, but Rand’s husband suggested she change the name to Atlas Shrugged. She started work on the book after finishing Fountainhead in the early 40s — and the book was finally finished and published it in 1957.

The first I’d heard of the book was in 1998. People kept telling me I was like John Galt in Atlas Shrugged — I mean a lot of people told me this after I abruptly and unexpectedly retired in my early 40s. I was tired of being an unappreciated Giver that was being penalized in favor of the lazy Takers. I found that my being compared to Galt very strange, mainly because I’d never heard of Galt or the book before.

In 1998, I owned three good size businesses, employed a couple hundred people, spent over $500,000 a month in expenses to local vendors, and earned about $400,000 a month profit for myself and a silent partner who had invested in me back in 1990. I was paying millions in taxes. However, despite my personally risking everything I had to get started, and working from 6AM to 11PM seven days a week — I was paying extortion fees of about $60,000 a month for nuisance valve settlements of frivolous lawsuits, fighting unreasonable government obstacles at levels, and the world appeared hated me for no reason more than the envy of success from my ambition, risk and long hours. I bent over backwards to be charitable — which while expected of me because I had more than average — was never appreciated by the recipients of my charity.

I finally got fed up and decided I was sick of beating me head against the wall just because it was expected Givers (those who contribute to the system more than they take from it), decided I was tired of being penalized for being productive, and I threw in the towel and retired from being a productive producer 30 years earlier than I should have. I had become sick of a Socialist political climate where the Takers are rewarded, and the Giver’s penalized.

People were shocked when I decided to retire and saw me adjust my lifestyle to live on a small fraction of what of what I was spending — after throwing away a $2,000,000 a year personal revenue stream. Family and friends thought I was crazy to give it all up to go drag racing — and some feel I am evil for not doing my part of employing people and spending money in the local economy. When I started being compared to John Galt — who I knew nothing of — I said I would someday read the book to find out why I’m being compared to him.

My understanding is that John Galt won’t be introduced in the book until after page 1000 — but in the first 100+ pages that I’ve read so far, the question “Who is John Galt” has been asked many times.

While this book was published in 1957 — it is all about what’s going on in America today. You have the Givers (like Bill Gates) who are some of the ambitious and charitable people who have taken risks and work their asses off to employ many in growing business — but are hated mostly out of envy (though other lame excuses are used); the book has the Takers who feel entitled to receive more than they give and are subsidized by the Givers they hate out of envy; the book has the worthless progressives who inherited money screwing up big the companies (like Jeff Imelt at GE) they run; the book has the Progressive Main Stream Media; the book has the equivalents of Michael Moore, Nancy Pelosi, and George Soros; and the book has cronyism, government bailout loans, and nationalization of business. You can kinda see where this book is going — and why the original title was “Strike”.

The book is so big and heavy (was wearing me out holding it up to read) with a small type font — that I sprung the $18 to get the iBook version that I’m now reading on my iPad. This is the first electronic book I’ve read — and I’ve got to tell you I’m digging it — although I never thought I would. I did it mainly because of the weight of a book and the small type — but I now finding that I read much faster on the iPad.

Man I’m telling you — this is so far the best novel I’ve ever read because we’re living it right now!

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I want to ask each of you to consider doing the following when you are talking on the phone to any US customer service representative that is based in a foreign country (like India ).

Any time you call an 800 number (for a credit card, banking, charter communications, health insurance, insurance, you name it) and you are transferred to a representative (like in India ), please consider doing the following:

After you connect and you realize that the customer service representatives not from the USA (you can always ask if you are not sure about the accent), please very politely (very politely – this is not about trashing other cultures) say, “I’d like to speak to a customer service representative in the United States of America.” The rep might suggest talking to his/her manager, but, again, politely say, “Thank you, but I’d like to speak to a customer service representative in the USA.” YOU WILL BE IMMEDIATELY CONNECTED to a rep in the USA. It only takes less than one minute to have your call re-directed to the USA.

Tonight when I got redirected to a USA rep, I asked again to make sure – and yes, she was from Fort Lauderdale.

Imagine if tomorrow, every US citizen who has to make such a call and then requests a US rep, imagine how that would ultimately impact the number of US jobs that would need to be created ASAP. Imagine what would happen if every US citizen insisted on talking to only US phone reps from this day on.

If I tell 10 people to consider this and you tell 10 people to consider doing this – see what I mean…it becomes an exercise in viral marketing 101.
Remember – the goal here is to restore jobs back here at home – not to be abrupt or rude to a foreign phone rep. If you agree, please tell 10 people you know and tell them to tell 10 people they know….etc…etc.